Can porn physically change the structure of your brain and even shrink it?

Hold on. We’ll get to that in a while.

With the wide spread use of high-speed Internet porn, we are in the middle of the fastest moving unconscious experiment ever conducted on a global level: nearly every young guy with Internet access becomes an eager test subject. That’s the conclusion of several experts, including physiology teacher Gary Wilson, who presented a TED Talk on the subject.

It all starts with a 10-year old boy—that’s the age when, according to research, boys usually seek pornography for the first time. High-speed Internet offers him not only nudity but constant novelty at a click of the mouse.

Our boy gets hooked.

The primal portion of his brain, focused on basic survival and reproduction, sees every new female on-screen as an opportunity for matting. It then releases dopamine, which keeps the boy clicking and clicking for more gratification—pretty much like a rat in a lab. A heavy porn user’s brain begins associating sex with behaviors such as being alone, voyeurism, clicking and searching, multiple tabs, constant novelty, shock and surprise.

Real sex, in contrast, is courtship, touching and being touched, smells, pheromones, emotional connection and interaction with a person. So what happens when this porn user finds a real mate?

He realizes he’s in trouble.

The increase of dopamine production promotes a cycle of binging and craving that numbs the brain to pleasures of everyday life while making it hyper-reactive to porn. Finally, the user’s willpower erodes, his brain changes and porn addiction settles. Symptoms include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, social anxiety, depression, performance anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Erectile dysfunction

It’s hard to believe that something healthy as sex can be harmful, but as Wilson notes, “Internet porn is not sex: it’s as different from real sex as today’s videogames are from checkers. From all activities on the Internet, porn is the most addictive.”

According to sexual addiction expert Dr. Victor Cline, repeated exposure to porn accompanied by masturbation triggers the first phase of the addiction. The second phase is escalation, requiring more porn exposure to achieve the same buzz and sometimes leading to a preference for porn over sexual intercourse. The third phase is desensitization, when the user views as normal what was once considered repulsive or immoral.

Finally, in the acting-out phase, the addict runs an increased risk of making the leap from screen to real life. This behavior may manifest itself in the form of promiscuity, cheating a partner, voyeurism, exhibitionism, group sex, rape, sadomasochism, or even child molestation.

Another serious problem with porn addiction is erectile dysfunction—which no blue pill can cure. A survey shows that Internet porn is killing young men’s performance: tuned into the porn hypergratification that’s provided by constant novelty, shock and surprise, the men’s brains are sending weaker signals to their genitals during real-life sex. The libido drops to the point that an erection becomes impossible, even while watching porn.

Like in a classical case of addiction, there is an increasing desensitization of the brain. It will then try to compensate that by seeking more novelty, shock and surprise, until it’s overstimulated to the limit and can no longer respond. The teenage brain is extremely vulnerable to addiction because its reward system is fully developed, whereas its restriction system is not: a teenage brain is all accelerator and no brakes.

Until a few years ago, there was no way of studying the impact of porn in human behavior because it was impossible to form a control group of non-users. That spoke volumes about the pervasiveness of pornography among men. When porn addicts began to seek help and break their habit, they became the control group that was missing.

From pigs to dogs to fish

Journalist Martin Daubney investigates the effects of porn in young users in the 2013 documentary Porn on the Brain. He used to be the editor of porn magazine Loaded and, after a long period away from pornography, he goes online and searches for the keyword porn. The results pop up in seconds. He’s shocked: “The first thing I see is two gaping orifices … It’s actually an Asian girl’s posterior, called Asian Slut Double Dipped.” He then finds a woman being fisted by one man while another pisses on her face. Next, a staged incest depicts the fisting of a teenager by her dad.

“I don’t remember being exposed to anything like this ever in my life,” says Daubney. “Porn has become altogether macabre. Where is the enjoyment and innocence gone? Now it’s all about a world of male domination and female humiliation.” A group of high school students tells him porn content pops up all the time on their Facebook or in advertisements, including illegal material—there’s everything “from pigs to dogs to fish.”

Daubney persuades neuroscientist Dr. Valeri Voon, from the University of Cambridge, to perform a brain scan in a group of porn addicts while they watch pornographic images. Unsure of what to expect, she is surprised with the results: users’ brains reacted just like the brains of substance addicts, with a pronounced increase in activity in the reward center.

A perfect example of the effects of porn addiction is provided by Calum, a good-looking 19-year old student who watches porn at least 15 times a day. He volunteers to talk on camera and picks up Daubney to show him around while they chat. As Calum is driving, he sees a girl on the street that triggers his compulsion. He’s forced to rush to a public restroom and, afterwards, looks miserable. He has no control over his porn addiction.

In the past Calum tried to cut off his habit, but porn images still invaded his fantasies. When Calum describes his real-life sex experiences, it’s obvious he’s been heavily conditioned by porn to regard women as sexual objects existing solely to please him, as he mentions twice that his preferences in bed depend on “what the girl has to offer.” His great concern regarding his addiction is that he’s not getting the most of sex as a result. That alone goes to show he seems to have lost the ability to connect with a partner: he has sex with body parts. “If a girl has a nice ass it has to be anal. If she has nice breasts it has to be missionary.” To Calum, real sex is not as good as porn. Luckily he didn’t become a sex offender.

Dr. John Woods, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, has treated dozens of young sex offenders. In the early 2000s there were very few cases of online porn involved in an offender’s behavior. “Now they’re the majority. There is no direct proof that watching violent porn instigates violent acts towards women,” he explains, “but clinically it’s clear that there is a connection.” Woods mentions the case of a patient who watched extreme porn and, haunted by those images, eventually raped a child.

Finally an erection

In the 2008 documentary Porndemic: Sex in the Digital Age by Robin Benger, addiction therapist Dr. Doris Vincent states that until 2002 she had never treated sex addicts. Six years later, she had more than 200 patients suffering from porn addiction, all male. “Internet porn is the crack and cocaine of sex addiction. It affects your dopamine reward system quite strongly. You’re playing around with very dangerous chemicals in your brain.”

Two physical changes occur in the brains of porn users, as shown in a study conducted in Germany in 2014. The first change is a rewiring of the frontal lobe, the part of the brain that restricts overindulging behavior. The second and more stunning neurological discovery is that high-speed Internet porn may actually shrink the brain: the more a person watches porn, the more accentuated the shrinkage. That means less grey matter in the portion of the brain responsible for decision making and motivation.

The good news is the addiction symptoms are reversed when the user quits watching porn, and after a few months of abstinence the changes are astounding. Interestingly enough, middle-age men recover faster than teenagers because their brains had not been impacted by Internet porn until later in their lives. Former users report the ability to have an erection, more self-confidence, focus and proactivity.

Men willing to quit porn now join an expanding movement across the Internet, with thousands of new adepts on sites like NoFap and Reboot Nation. And the numbers keep rising. Reboot Nation’s founder Gabe Deen tells his story in the 2015 news special Is free pornography destroying our brains?He began watching porn on a regular basis when he was eight. At one point Deen couldn’t lead a normal life without porn. He developed erectile dysfunction at the age of 23.

“It started out with very soft porn, then it would escalate to a couple of guys and one girl, gang bangs … and then I would watch things that were shocking or created anxiety, like very abusive and misogynistic stuff.” Neurosurgeon Donald Hilton, interviewed in the program, explains that, since the human brain naturally seeks novelty, there’s a progression in the use of porn that may translate into violence and pedophilia: “We need new. Then new is aggression. New is younger.”

Neuroscience studies still need to be expanded for a definitive conclusion about how porn affects the brain, but it certainly facilitates the desensitization to violence and shapes behavior.

Not only porn addicts are affected by pornography, though. Boys and girls, men and women that aren’t addicted can also be dramatically impacted by porn. I’ll be exploring that on my next post.

How many penises and sexual positions can be sneaked into children cartoons and TV shows?

More importantly: what does that have to do with you?

A lot, actually.

No matter if you’re a child, a teen, a young adult or a parent: this has affected and is still affecting you right now, directly or indirectly.

We are all bombarded with sexual content by the media to such extent that we lose track of the true meaning of what we see. We have become desensitized and regard certain things as normal when in reality they aren’t normal at all. We need to look at them with fresh eyes. We need to see things for what they are.

I never gave much thought to that until I stumbled across SubliminalHyper Sexualization of Children Exposed on Youtube. It parades a collection of sexual imagery in entertainment and products aimed at children. I gasped as I watched the full menu, from genitals to oral and anal sex, not to mention plain pedophilia. In fact, I was so appalled that I did a research and found countless other instances all over the place.

What the heck is going on?

Boys and girls are exposed to sex from a very tender age. They suffer a sexual assault from ads, toys, games, films, music, TV and fashion. Sexual content is used not only to sell but ultimately to condition behavior that will affect future romantic relationships and sexuality. According to the Geena Davis Institute of Gender in the Media, recent research shows that girls as early as 6 years old view themselves as sexual objects: they feel they need to be sexy in order to be appreciated.

Not dolls: plastic prostitutes for girls to role play with

Dolls, for example, are hypersexualized, and so are female cartoon characters. Girls are sold the notion that being sexy is more important than developing qualities such as self-acceptance, independence and individuality. As a result, girls are indoctrinated to value sex appeal, materialism and conformism—as objects they become inherently passive, since objects are passive by definition.

Smartphones, tablets and TV fill the lives of children all day long. Many spend more time interacting with media than they do with anything else. The three largest media conglomerates are Disney, NBC and CBS, and most children shows on those networks promote the sexualization of young children through their programming.

Programming means conditioning: it can change you without you realizing. You start to act upon beliefs and patterns of behavior that are not your own but rather forced upon you in a deceptive way and through repetition.

Hypersexualized exposes a load of sexual images in children shows that are hidden in plain view or flash on the screen before your conscious mind can filter them. Those images go straight to your subconscious mind, which stores the information and uses it to program your behavior. I was shocked with what I saw in the seemingly innocent images gathered in the video.

Is this appropriate for children?

How about shows heavily geared towards kids kissing, dating and cheating? Let’s remember that whatever children see shapes their view of the world and teaches them their role in society: children imitate behaviors to which they are exposed. You have young girls that are children idols and grow up to become young celebrities in the music industry. Then they are pressured to hypersexualize themselves, as Miley Cyrus explains to Barbara Walters in an interview: “I don’t always want to be naked. Once I came out on stage completely covered, and they rolled ‘Miley is boring, she doesn’t get naked and she’s boring.’ No matter what I do, I’m either boring or I’m a slut.” Young adults such as Cyrus are role models to their teen fans, who want to be like them. That reinforces the slut culture and opens up a whole market for the fashion industry.

How about a T-shirt that reads “I love cock”? Girls as young as seven-year olds are wearing it.

Sociologist Dr. Gail Dines says there used to be two main categories of porn: the implicit soft porn and the explicit hardcore porn. Today, porn is categorized as hardcore mainstream or hardcore extreme, while soft porn has moved to popular culture. If you watch videos by artists such as Lady Gaga, Rhiana, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and others, you get the full soft porn deal: nudity, twerking, orgies and quite often sexual lyrics. In fact, even hardcore porn can be found in pop culture these days: the music video All Over the House by Skepta features porn actors, genitals and real penetration right on your face.

Remember that children and young teens copy what they see and hear.

Children pageants like Toddlers and Tiaras are another example of how pervasive this hypersexualization is. In a spoof starring Tom Hanks, he takes his daughter to the Ultimate Sexy Baby Pageant. For starters, the words sexy and baby shouldn’t even be in the same sentence. Tom Hanks alleged 6-year old daughter performs with heavy makeup and a dress that exposes her midriff. In the end, she sings the line “Talk dirty to me” in a flirtatious way and Tom Hanks applauds, repeating several times what a sexy baby she is.

Is it me, or this is plain creepy? Yet people are so conditioned to find it normal they don’t realize how twisted this is. They think it’s cute and hilarious.

The message is clear to girls: you’re expected to be sexy at all costs in order to earn appreciation. That also means being morbidly thin like the photoshopped models seen in ads everywhere.

Educational psychologist Lori Day writes in the Huffington Post that the widespread practice of misrepresenting the appearance of models in order to sell products and services creates false and unrealistic expectations about what people should, can, and do look like. “Advertisers don’t even have the tip of a fig leaf over themselves on this issue. This is deceptive and damaging to our daughters—and to our sons, who are also influenced to believe girls can and should look like these advertisements, and who are starting to see male models photoshopped to unrealistic muscular proportions as well.”

Many studies provide crucial data connecting these ads to negative outcomes for girls. Here are just a few:

Then we have this desperate need for social validation not only leading to health problems and low self-esteem but also promiscuity. Moreover, this kind of objectification promotes a culture of rape and pedophilia. What do you think happens when you have young girls trained to be sexual objects, and boys and men trained to view them as such? Objects are meant to be available for grabs. Objects are meant to be used and abused since they lack humanity—they’re just “things.”

Here’s some food for thought. How does this female objectification affect romantic relationships? Does it contribute to a closer and more satisfying bond for men and women? Does it promote equality and respect, which constitute the foundation for a healthy relationship and, ultimately, a well-adjusted society?

Before I end this post, let me be clear: I’m not a moralist by any stretch of the imagination. But the same way I don’t like the church preaching chastity, I don’t like the media preaching porn and objectification, and thus rendering sex utterly banal. Sex is not banal—especially for females, because it implies opening up their bodies to someone else. Of course sex can be casual, but it needs to be rooted in self-respect and true desire, not merely triggered by social pressure and indoctrination. Having sex is not as simple as having a glass of water—it does have consequences, both physical and emotional.

Sex needs to have meaning. Sex devoid of meaning is dirty in the worst possible sense.

We are all bombarded with sexual content by the mass media to such an extent that we lose track of the true meaning of what we see. We have become desensitized and regard certain things as normal when in reality they aren’t normal at all. We need to look at them with fresh eyes. We need to see things for what they are.

Want to make a difference? Sign the Truth in Ads petition to ban those hideous photoshopped ads that lead our girls to such a miserable condition.

On my next post I’ll be talking about the greatest porn experiment ever made. Stay tuned. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.